Sponsored by Tapper Funeral Services
From the deck of Smithy (photos and report)
Another great weekend but this one had plenty of wind.
A lower turn out compared to previous Hamble races, but 11 boats of varying sizes. Nice to see Matt there to do his splendid job on the results first hand.…..Thanks to the Royal Southern Yacht Club who let us enjoy their lovely club house and fantastic views while supping our evening sundowners, courtesy of Tapper Funeral Service.
We set Class 1+2 a bit of a Solent tour for the course. Beat to Branksome Outfall, North Head to stbd which meant carrying a spinnaker was a bit hot, Sconse to port, Solent Banks (PCM) to stbd, Gurnard Ledge (SCM) to port, so a bit of zig zagging some of it against the tide. Every J boat of every size seemed to be Regattering off Yarmouth, plus a massive fleet of XOD, more sails than sea. Class 3+4 got to do the windward mark then straight to the finish line, everyone arrived with quite close times. The wind all day was offshore and 50 shades of NW wind. The finish line presented a few questions as before.
Sunday was a start/finish. We set up the start with Hook lined up with Fawley chimney which is difficult to miss. A beat all the way back to Poole with app wind showing up to 25kn. Wind again was flukey, twitchy, gusty NW-W.I’ll be interested to see the finish times. Amethyst had long gone when Smithy started 12mins later, and they probably hadn’t realised we’d gone inshore whilst they and Zorra were duelling offshore. We got some good lifts and popped out ahead of them at Bar buoy and finished first. Line honours to the multihull who doesn’t go to wind 🙂